| Seen here leaning against the diving board at
the secluded Hotel Bel-Air, MARILYN MONROE poses for one of the
thousands of photo sessions that she happily endured to achieve stardom.
What set Monroe apart from all the other screen goddesses in film history
was her tender-hearted innocence amid all that sensuality. As history has
shown, her great success did not bring her happiness. "That's the
trouble- a sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate being a thing,"
she bemoaned. Her hoss at Fox, Daryl Zanurk. unwilling to stray from a
successful formula, kept her typecast in the same roles. When Monroe balked.
she was suspended by the studio and went to New York to study Method acting
at the Actors Studio. After she married baseball's Joe DiMaggio, Zanuck
agreed to give her more input in her project selections. Her comedic flair
surfaced in two Billy Wilder films, The Seven Year Itch (1955) and
Some Like It Hot (1955)). Unfortunately her insecurities and dependence
on drugs, together with other personal problems, were taking a toll on
her prrofessional life. In 1962, unable to remember her lines, Monroe was
replaced by Doris Day in Something's Got To Give, and the film was
renamed Move Over Darling. When Marilyn Monroe, the actress, died
in 1962, Marilyn Monroe, the legend, was born. |
MAMIE VAN DOREN was the B-movies' platinum-blond
sex kitten. Van Doren outlived all her competition and estahlished a loyal
cult following with camp classics like High-School Confidential
(1958), Girlstown (1959) and Sex Kittens Go To College (1960).
ELIZABETH TAYLOR could not escape the animal print craze of the
fifties. It was a style well suited to her image as a beautiful, pampered
feline, alwavs on the prowl for adoration. The photograph was hyped with
the slogan "If you can't drive a Jaguar, wear one."
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